A Denver native who’s not ready to say goodbye to City Park Golf Course as he knows it

DENVER – Driving around town you might have seen some “Ditch the Ditch” signs in people’s yards. Long story short, it all has to do with the expansion of I-70 – and a citywide construction project in Denver to reshape the storm drainage system.

The city will tell you the two aren’t connected. The critics say they are. That’s not what this story is about.

Part of that drainage project would build a huge retention pond at City Park Golf course. That means the course will close at the end of this year, and the whole thing will be redesigned. A brand new golf course will open in 2019, but one Andy Lyford is a Denver native with a strong opinion on that.

“I grew up playing City Park Golf Course. It’s one of my happiest places on Earth … It’s in the middle of the city. It has the best views of the city … It’s suffocating. I guess that’s the word I would use because we’re Western people. We’re Colorado people. None of us were originally from here, so we want people to come here. We welcome it, but a lot of times, we feel that the traditions and things that we love are being trampled on. I’m almost 50, but it seems like I’ve seen the amount of growth that most people would see over the course of 100 years…”

Andy was emotional describing what growing up on the course has meant to him. You can hear from Andy in the video above.

The city says this drainage project is necessary to relieve flooding problems in neighborhoods. A group is suing the city over the City Park plan, claiming the city is trying to illegally convert the course into non-park use land

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The City and County of Denver and Saunders Construction are hosting a community open house to share updates on the redesign of City Park Golf Course. There will be stations with information on the following aspects[...]

Councilman Rafael Espinoza has been vocal about his concerns about the project.
“This is a colossal misuse of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money that could be addressing a whole bunch of stormwater needs citywide,” Espinoza said in an interview. “While I think there is a nice and beautiful and more playable way of doing what we’re doing today, yes, I don’t object to the concept.”
That is, using the golf course for detention might be OK — just not like this.
“I do object to the way we’re using city funds and creating projects that aren’t necessary and building projects that aren’t necessary for this city, but are necessary for the interstate and confusing the two,” Espinoza said.
There are also questions as to whether the City Park Golf Course renovations will even see the light of day with multiple lawsuits against the project. Espinoza questioned how much the design process is costing the city for a project that could be halted by the court. Read more →

What does it say about our city and the value of its commitments when in one breath our mayor can pledge long term stewardship of the Denver Press Club building and in the next sacrifice City Park Golf Course to redevelopment for drainage? City Park Friends and Neighbors believe Denver can do better and we urge the Hancock Administration to meet the commitment it made to preserve and protect City Park Golf Course. Read more →